MARCH MADNESS: Storm weakened but still fierce

Tuesday

Mar 14, 2017 at 12:01 AMMar 15, 2017 at 6:17 AM

Forecasters say southeastern Massachusetts is likely to escape the brunt of a late-season winter storm that was once thought to have the potential to reach blizzard force in the region, but officials are still urging residents to be careful.

The National Weather Service predicts the Brockton region will accumulate about 5-8 inches of snow accumulation.

Snow started falling across the majority of the state as of 7 a.m. Tuesday. Highways in the area were largely deserted as commuters heeded the urging of Gov. Charlie Baker, who warned Monday that snowfall could reach a rate of 2 to 4 inches per hour at the peak of the storm, expected to be between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

"This storm is still coming," state highway administrator Thomas Tinlin said Tuesday morning. "It's still real."

National Weather Service, March 14

Public works officials, who had started watching the impending storm over the weekend, were calling around Monday to make sure that contract plow drivers were available to work. Officials in towns closer to Boston were watching forecasts into the evening to see whether they would be hit by the full force of a blizzard or the wetter, heavier snow predicted for areas to the south.

The storm, which is still expected to wallop northwestern Massachusetts with up to 2 feet of snow, brought many businesses, schools and government offices to a standstill Tuesday. School departments in many South Shore towns canceled classes, Gov. Baker ordered non-emergency state workers to stay home and all state courts were closed for the day.

Travel is at a standstill throughout the region. Traffic is light on local roads, flights have been cancelled at Logan airport and ferry and Amtrak service has been suspended.

The nor’easter was expected to take a toll on both the morning and evening commutes as well. All MBTA ferries out of Hingham and Hull are canceled for the day, the Mattapan trolley in Milton was to be replaced with shuttle-bus service, and the high-occupancy “zipper lane” on the Southeast Expressway between Boston and Braintree was to remain closed though the day. Commuter trains were expected to operate on an “extreme-weather” schedule.

The late-season storm comes at the tail end of a relatively average winter season for public works officials, with what Victor Diniak, Hanover’s public works director, called two “relatively easy” weeks so far in March. Most public works departments still had plenty of road salt, which has been in short supply in recent weeks.

“If at this point if you had to order salt, you wouldn’t get any,” Diniak said.

Diniak said he is about $100,000 over his $387,000 snow and ice budget – a line item that municipal governments routinely underbudget because it is one of the few areas were they can spend beyond their annual appropriations – and expects to spend another $60,000 to $80,000 clearing snow and treating roads today.

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The National Weather Service canceled its blizzard watch for Norfolk and Plymouth counties Monday as forecasts showed the brunt of the storm tracking westward, but Gov. Baker warned that the combination of wet, heavy snow, sleet and strong winds could still lead to downed tree limbs and power lines. He said the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency would be monitoring power blackouts and working with utility companies.

The weather service also warned of coastal flooding from Scituate to Plymouth as the afternoon high tide brings a storm surge of around 3 feet. The agency said large waves could also top sea walls in Hull, Scituate and Marshfield, and beach erosion was expected in some areas.

The storm comes at the end of relatively normally winter for Massachusetts, especially in comparison to the unusually mild winter last year and recording-breaking snow totals a year before that. Ahead of today’s storm, the Boston area had seen just over 39 inches of snow so far this season, compared to 26 inches by this time last year, according to the National Weather Service. The average for this time of year is 38.

By comparison, in 2015 the Boston area has already been hit with 99 inches of snow by March 1.

This year’s winter weather may not be over yet, however. Forecasts on Monday were showing the possibility of another inch of snow on Saturday.

Material from the State House News Service was included in this report.

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